


The Forest People

by sweetcarolanne



Category: Original Work
Genre: Age Difference, Cryptozoology, Extra Treat, F/M, Fluff, Giants, Matriarchy, Monsters, Romance, Size Difference, Slice of Life, Tentacles, primates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 13:37:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17426897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetcarolanne/pseuds/sweetcarolanne
Summary: Queenie and her tribe had saved and protected Zac when he was a child. Now it is his turn to protect them.





	The Forest People

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Silex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/gifts).



> Dear Silex, I liked the look of all your prompts and knew I had to treat one of them, and this is the plotbunny that bit me! I hope you like this! <3
> 
> Many thanks to my anonymous beta.

Zac stood in the clearing and uttered a long, low whistle. 

It seemed like an eternity before he heard the bushes and dead leaves on the forest floor begin to rustle and the soft padding of huge splayed feet; they were a cautious tribe and wanted to make sure that Zac had come alone. Within moments, he was surrounded by thirty or so individuals; fourteen were adults at their full height of almost twelve feet and the rest were lively juveniles or babies still held in their mothers’ arms.

At first sight they appeared to be oversized gorillas, but their mossy green fur that let them blend into the surrounding foliage and the ring of eight prehensile, fingerless limbs resembling the arms of an octopus which encircled their waists marked them as vastly different from ordinary apes. Perhaps they were not even creatures of earth, and they had somehow come from another world that was far beyond the stars. To Zac, however, they were simply “the forest people” and the only true friends that he, once a shy and lonely child rejected and bullied by his peers, had managed to find in his youth.

Zac kept his eyes lowered in respect and inclined his head as he sensed the alpha female drawing closer, and a shiver ran up his spine as she bent to sniff his hair and grunt an affectionate greeting. Long fingers ending in viciously sharp claws of ebony carded through his hair and she made a sonorous humming sound.

All was well. She had accepted his submission.

“Hello, Queenie,” Zac whispered. He would never know her true name, if she even had one, but this nickname was most appropriate for her since she was the undisputed leader of the troop, and had been so even before Zac had first met her on that long-ago day when he, at the age of five, had got himself lost in the woods and she had rescued him. Daring to look into Queenie’s eyes at last, he saw the unmistakable intelligence within them and the tenderness with which she would regard him always. 

These loving looks, and the deference that the males of the troop showed to him despite his inferior size, had led Zac to the realization several years ago that he had been chosen as Queenie’s mate.

“Yes, I’m still yours,” he told her, and Queenie chuffed in response, one slender tentacle wriggling its way underneath his shirt.

“Hey, that tickles!” Zac protested, and Queenie barked out a strange laugh before picking him up in her arms and lumbering over to where the rest of the troop were.

The males hung back and waited their turn, as was the custom of this tribe, while the females and their babies came forward to receive the flu vaccine Zac had brought with him in his black leather doctor’s bag. It was not much fun for them, especially for the youngsters who whined and grimaced and tried to pull away, but Queenie stood by Zac’s side with a stern look on her face, making sure that all her followers complied.

Alien though their appearance was, the forest people were susceptible to all the same diseases as the human race, and for them influenza was the deadliest sickness of all. Wanting to save his friends from its ravages was what had led Zac to becoming a zoo veterinarian in the first place. What worked on the zoo’s great apes, Zac had figured, would also work for his somewhat ape-like friends, and his theory had proved correct.

When every member of the troop had been inoculated at long last, the forest people sat relaxing, occasionally reaching with their massive arms or stretchy extra limbs to pluck choice leaves, ripe berries or even loosened pieces of bark from nearby trees. Zac took this opportunity to climb up into Queenie’s lap, and her arms folded him close to her chest while her tentacles roamed all over his body, stroking, soothing and grooming him till he almost fell into a blissful trance.

The world Zac had grown up in was, to him, a truly foreign place; only here among the forest people did he feel at home.


End file.
